Method for inhibiting the formation of malodors from poultry farms

ABSTRACT

It has been discovered that evolving of offensive stench from the accumulation of droppings in fowl houses is substantially eliminated by means of coarse powders of dried ferrous sulfate hepta-hydrate. The powder is preferably used in the form of a mixture with some fly ash or dried fine powders of zeolite for the ease of dusting, and generation of the offensive odor is substantially inhibited by dusting the floor of fowl houses with said powder in advance. The thus treated droppings can be effectively utilized as an excellent fertilizer or feedstuff for fowl, fish and domestic animals.

United States Patent 191 Komakine 51 Dec. 4, 1973 METHOD FOR INHIBITINGTHE FORMATION OF MALODORS FROM POULTRY FARMS [76] Inventor: ChukeiKomakine, 6-1, 3-chome,

Taira Aza, Iwaki-shi, Fukushima-ken, Japan [22] Filed: June 29, 1971[21] Appl. No.: 158,077

[52] US. Cl 119/1, 71/1, 71/21, 99/2, 99/4 [51] Int. Cl A01k 31/04 [58]Field of Search 119/1; 424/76, 131; 71/21; 99/2 R, 4, 3; 252/184, 194;4/115 [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 66,357 7/1867 Kenny71/21 2,477,892

8/1949 Paquette 119/1 Rice 424/76 Kooistra 424/ l 3 1 PrimaryExaminer-Norman Yudkoff [57] 7 ABSTRACT It has been discovered thatevolving of offensive stench from the accumulation of droppings in fowlhouses is substantially eliminated by means of coarse powders of driedferrous sulfate hepta-hydrate. The powder is preferably used in the formof a mixture with some fly ash or dried fine powders of zeolite for theease of dusting, and generation of the offensive odor is substantiallyinhibited by dusting the floor of fowl houses with said powder inadvance. The thus treated droppings can be effectively utilized as anexcellent fertilizer or feedstuff for fowl, fish and domestic animals.

2 Claims, No Drawings METHOD FOR INHIBITING THE FORMATIONOF MALODORSFROM POULTRY FARMS BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates tothe poultry farming, .and more particularly to a method of inhibitinggeneration of offensive odor in poultry farms.

As the demand for chicken and egg as foodstuffs has remarkably expanded,the chicken farming enterprise is now transforming itself from the homeindustry to a kind of large scale manufactory industry'in which scoresof several ten thousands'ofchickens are raised However, such a largescale poultry rais'ingisinevitably attended by the most difficultproblem of h'ow to deal with the droppings. The semi-fluiddroppingsexcreted day and night all over the floorofvast 'chickenhouses offer ahotbed formaggots and pathogenic germs, andstench emitted from the.droppings discouragesfarms workers and reduces egg-laying rate. In fact,it is an established fact thatmore than/50-percent=of thehens1 which areraised in a large scale chicken house are sufferring from some kindofrespiratory diseasecaused by noxious gases such asammonia and hydrogensulfide reeking in chicken houses, and thus their'egg-laying' rate isabout 30 percent less than that of healthy hens;

Besides, it is well known that the offensive odor of chicken housesdrifts to the surrounding neighborhood as far as half kilometer andcreates an environmental pollution or nuisance to the people-dwellinginthe.

neighborhood.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is tosubstantially eliminate generation of offensive odor from poultry farms.

Another object of the present invention is to increase the egg-layingrate in large scale poultry farms.-

Still another object of the present invention is'to produce anodorless-organic fertilizer rich in highly-effec tive components-fromfowl droppings;

Further, still anotherobject of the present'invention is to produce afeedstuff suitable for raisingfowl, fish der is preferably used in theform of a mixture with fine powder of fly ash or zeolite for conveniencein dusting. It is preferably dusted in advance so that chickens may droptheir excrement on the layer of the scattered ferrous sulfate powder,and after a period of timetheiheap containing droppings, ferrous sulfatepowder and :the additive material is collected and taken outof:chickenhouses. The same operation is repeated insuccession;

The collected mixture, after being dried, can be effectively utilized asan odorless organic fertilizeroranodorless feedstuff suitable forraising fowl, fish 'and domestieanimals.

It will be understood that various modifications may i by .made withoutdeparting from the spirit orscope of the invention herein described, andit is intended in the appended-claims to cover all such modificationsasfall ing within the true spirit and scope of the invention;

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Although this invention relatestothe farming of fowl such as chicken, turkey or duck in its broad aspect,the invention is hereinafter-illustrated specifically with respect tothe chicken farming as the typicalembodiment thereof.

Chicken droppings undergo zymosis and decomposition within a few hoursafter excreted and emit stench. In order to kill this stench, a methodof dusting an adsorbent such as zeolite powder over the floor of 7chicken houses was considered. However, such an ad- 'sorbent isexpensive and is not so effective. Further more, such an adsorbentmerelyadsorbs malodor emitted from the droppings, and therefore, inorder -to effectradical deodorization, generation of malodor per se mustibeinhibited. In other words, the zymotic decomposition of the droppingsmust be ceased.

Il' 'ave thought of using industrial ferrous sulfate, which is known tohave 'a weak sterilizing activity, for the purpose of the radicaldeodorization of the chicken droppings; The industrial ferrous sulfate,that is, crude crystalline ferrous sulfate hepta-hydrate (FeSO -7-' HO), is produced in quantities as a by-product in vari= ous inorganicchemical industries, especially in the manufacture of titanium oxidefrom ilmenite. A small portion-'itl'fereof is used as the material forproduction of red iron oxide, some kinds of inks and pigments, as amordant, but major portion thereof is discarded as an industrial wastewithout any economic use. Unfortunately, ferrous sulfate is stronglyacidic, and this material cannot be dumped at places where there is fearfor provoking public nuisance problems. Therefore, today The presentinventor dusted the floor of a chicken house with: a coarse powder l0 50Tyler mesh) of the above-mentioned by-product ferrous sulfate, and

raised many chickens there. It was found that the chicken droppingsmixed with the ferrous sulfate no' longer undergo zymosis anddecomposition and there fore emit almost no malodor, and thatfertilizing activity of the droppings is not lost.

I Now the invention is explained with respect to a specific embodiment.About 300 kg of the ferrous sulfate was dusted on the floor of a chickenhouse and 10,000 hens were raised there. After 5 days, about 400 kg ofthe additional ferrous sulfatewas scattered over the accumlateddroppings on the floor, and feeding was continued 5 more daysbDuringthese 10 days, no offensive odor was noticed in the chicken house, andit was found that the egg-laying rate increased by about 15 percentcomparison with that when ferrous sulfate was notused. After these 10days, about 7,000 kg of the raw droppings mixed with ferrous sulfate wascollected. The ferrous sulfate content in the raw droppings was about 10percent. The droppings; which contained about percent water, were driedat a temperature of from l20 to C, and about 225 kg of an odorlessorganic fertilizer containing about 8 percent water was obtained. Theanalysis of the fertilizer was: N 4.57 P 0 4.48%. K20 2.43% and Fe- O:,3.68%. The analysis of the fertilizer containing 8%water obtained fromthe same droppings exce'pting'no use of ferrous sulfate was: N 2.84%, P0 4. I4%.-K'2O 2.52% andf'Fe-goa 1.32%, and the yield of this fertilizerwas about ZOO kg.

As the industrial ferrous sulfate hepta-hydrate is somewhat hygroscopic,crushing and dusting of this material cannot be easily carried out. Alsowhen this material is let stand in the atmosphere, the surface of thecrystals of the material is gradually converted yellowish brown ironhydroxysulfate, and thus the abovementioned deodorizing effect isweakened. It was found that incovenience in handling and instability ofthis material is remedied by adding fly ash or finely pulverized zeolitepowder thereto. That is to say, a composition, which is obtained bymixing coarse powder of the industrial crystalline ferrous sulfatehepta-hydrate 7 with about a half amount of fly ash or fine powder (100150 Tyler mesh) of dried zeolite, followed by drying at a temperature 6080 C, is non-hygroscopic and stable against decomposition. As theparticles thereof are self-lubricated, it is satisfactory in efficacyand convenient in handling when used as the deodorizer for the chickendroppings. The ferrous sulfate in this composition does not decompose,and so the amount thereof to be dusted over the floor will be less than700 kg per 10,000 hens per 10 days, which is the same amount as in thepreviously mentioned case.

Raw chicken droppings contain about 75 percent water, and its pH valueis around 7. Crystalline ferrous sulfate heptahydrate contains about 45percent water in its molecule, and the pH of its high concentrationaqueous solution is about 2.2. In contrast, fly ash, which is anultrafine ash powder collected from smoke in the flue ,of boilersburning powdered coal by means of the dust collector, is an alkalinematerial. An aqueous dispersion prepared by suspending 30 g of thismaterial in 60 ml of water shows a pH value of about 1 1. Therefore, thechicken droppings mixed with about 7 percent by weight (on the basis ofthe weight of the droppings) of the ferrous sulfate hepta-hydrate powderand about 3.5 percent by weight (the same as above) of fly ash exhibitspH of around 7.3, which means that the mixture is substantially neutral.Furthermore the particles of fly ash are spherical and act as alubricant, which makes the operation of pelletizing the dried droppingsmixture quite easy. For the above-mentioned reasons, as the additive forthe ferrous sulfate, fly ash is preferred rather than zeolite. However,supply of fly ash is getting more and more scarce, since consumption ofcoal as the fuel is becoming more and more unpopular. In this situation,zeolite can be used instead of fly ash. Zeolite, as

well as fly ash, is known as an adsorbent, and it acts as the adsorbentfor adhesion moisture of ferrous sulfate crystals in the presentinvention, too.

The crystalline ferrous sulfate hepta-hydrate is easily converted toiron hydroxysulfate when it is heated at 120C in dry air.

The substance obtained by drying a mixture of 100 parts by weight of rawchicken droppings, about 7 parts by weight of crystalline ferroussulfate hepta-hydrate and about 3.5 parts by weight of fly ash or finezeolite powder can be utilized effectively as an odorless fertilizer forplants. Furthermore, it has been found by the present inventor that thesubstance can be used as an odorless feedstuff for domestic animals.

All animals will never eat raw chicken droppings because of itsoffensive odor and because they instinctively know that they are anunsanitary material. But fish, fowl and domestic animals are quitewilling to eat the odorless chicken droppings obtained by the aboveexplained treatment, and it is most surprising that even chickensthemselveseat them again. The chicken droppings mixture obtained inaccordance with this invention is highly nutritive.

It is generally said that a feedstufi is satisfactory if it containsmore than 18 percent of proteins. However, the dried chicken droppingsof this invention contain about 30 percent of proteins. An example ofthe analysis of dried chicken droppings is given below:

Water 10.35 Calorific value 2,161 Cal/kg Proteins 21.90 Lysine 0.36Fatts 1.25 Methionine 47.2 mg Fibrous sub- 7.13 Triptophane 83.2 mg-%stances Ash 30.4 Soluble substances con- 21.33 taining no N The proteincontent of the chicken droppings feed stuff of this invention, whichcontains ferrous sulfate and fly ash or zeolite powder, is generallypercent.

The intestinal canal of bird is very short so as to keep its bodyweightvery light for the ease of flying. Therefore, ingested food is excretedwithout being completely digested and absorbed, and so droppings ofchickens, or birds in general, contains high concentration of proteins.However, raw droppings cannot be used as feedstuff as it is, becausethey are an unsanitary material which is subject to generation ofmalodor, maggots and pathogenic germs as mentionedbefore. But' thedroppings which have been treated with ferrous sulfate in accordancewith this invention are odorless and quite free from such pestilentialfactors, and thus are acceptable by animals. 1

The chicken droppings substance obtained in accordance with thisinvention contains iron hydroxysulfate and'fly ash or zeolite. It isalready established that these added materials are harmless if they areintaken in animal bodies together with the feed. However, it isdesirable to addless than about 20 percent of the chicken droppingsfeedstuff to ordinary feed, since there is possibility of causingstomach disorders if too a large amount thereof is ingested.

Carp were raised with this droppings feedstuff alone for six months.There. was no hindrance in their growth, and there occurred noputrefaction of sludge accumulated on the bottom of pond as experiencedwhen conventional feedstuffs were used.

Pigs were raised with an ordinary feedstuff containing 20 percent byweight of this chicken droppings feedstuff, and the pigs willingly atethe mixed feedstufl and grew satisfactorily. Consequently, excellentpork rich in protein and containing less fat wasproduced in the sameyield as with the conventional feed. In addition thereto, the offensiveodor of the pig farm was greatly reduced, and a better environment wascreated.

Further, in chicken raising, an ordinary feedstufi containing 20 percentby weight of this chicken droppings feedstufi was used. Chickens wereraised on the floor dusted with the ferrous sulfate-fly ash mixtureperpetually. The results were no less than those in the case wherechickens were raised with ordinary feed. The surplus of the treateddroppings were appropriated to pig raising.

It will require no explanation that cattle, horse or any other animalcan be fed with this chicken droppings feedstufi as well as pig.

from 100 to 150 Tyler mesh, said mixture having been dried at atemperature of from to 80C, on the dropping floor of poultry coopwhereby the poultry drop their excrement on the layer of said mixture;and collecting the droppings mixed with said mixture.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said mixture together with thedroppings are collected when the amount of droppings is about ten timesby weight that of the ferrous sulphate in said mixture.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said mixture together with thedroppings are collected when the amount of droppings is about ten timesby weight that of the ferrous sulphate in said mixture.